Those who have been predicting the end of books and, more specifically, the end of novels should be amazed at the rich harvest of fiction coming out of South Africa.
I hesitate to say that it might have something to do with creative writing courses at universities as we have always had a robust literary tradition and many new writers do not take these courses. But, having said this, these two novels were both written under the guidance of the University of Cape Town’s creative writing teachers. Despite the real problems around literacy levels and promoting a culture of reading, things appear to be looking up and it seems that these days local publishers and readers are spoilt for choice.
One of the most remarkable first novels I have read in years is Blood Kin (Penguin) by Ceridwen Dovey, which has come out with a shout on the front cover by the venerable JM Coetzee of Adelaide. A great deal of drivel gets written about fiction and much of it appears in the publisher’s hype. Coetzee’s remarks here are helpful, but another shout source describes this book as ‘elegant” and ‘icy”. While the first seems a bit thin for the measured arabesques of this novel, I really have a problem with ‘icy”. White heat perhaps, or the ice that smokes and burns.
A kaleidoscopic take on ‘regime change” in some unspecified country is what this book delivers. Always narrated in the first person, the story passes effortlessly between those closest to the deposed president: his barber, portraitist and chef, all of whom are now kept prisoner in the summer palace with the old president and the new commander. The story is then picked up by those closest to the first narrators: daughter, wife, fiancé — creating a ripple effect that comes back in uncomfortable waves.
There is not much distinctive characterisation in these voices — a small fault, perhaps — but each twist of the view gives us another facet of the story, fractured but fascinating, and each narrator is placed by tags of imagery and setting. The strange, dislocated and rather sinister atmosphere of uncertainty is ameliorated by the domestic detail: the chef’s cooking, the painting process, the sweeping up of cut hair.
Blood Kin is full of intensity and sensuous imagery. Windows recur frequently: views through them, reflections, voices overheard. All of this grounds the novel and makes it more than a political parable on power and those trailing in its wake. Expedience, corruption and deceit brush shoulders with lucklessness and fear, and love is in short supply or despised.
Some might not like the lack of a main character whose ups and downs draw the reader into the story, but the fragmented narration serves to convey the unsettled times. This is an accomplished start to Dovey’s writing career and deserves a second read. It is startlingly tough and lyrical.
Algeria’s Way (Umuzi) by Alex Smith is a very different work, but highly original and a great deal of fun, which is surprising given its underlying seriousness. Algeria is the narrator’s name and she is undertaking a walking pilgrimage in Spain, which she does in the company, more or less, of nine other South Africans. They have a guide who prepares them for this Catholic ritual by using Tarot card symbols that are also used as chapter headings.
Part of the pleasure of this book is in connecting these chapter headings to the stories, for there are many of these (shades of The Canterbury Tales). Algeria gets to hear several of them and it is this rich passing show of humanity that makes the book so delightful.
Many of these stories are, sadly, commonplace — cheating spouses, abused children — and the tellers of all are suffering in some way, transmuting their pain in the communal life and ritual of the pilgrimage. Algeria herself is fading away (anorexia?) and one feels for her; she is so frail and impossible, so unhappy and driven. But her observations about her fellow pilgrims are sharp and dry.
At the heart of this narration is a search for love and belonging. Algeria begins by addressing the sisters (who are probably not who you think they are) and begging them not to believe the novel written by her friend Miguel. He takes on the pilgrimage every year and, though she deflects his advances, he has made Algeria the centre of his ‘poorly motivated operetta” — what she calls his novel. While she completes the walk she is also working out of her system her most recent unhappy affair.
There are many surprises in this finely constructed novel. Its charming quirkiness lifts suburban miseries out of banality and leaves the reader feeling elated, amused and thoughtful.